We’re excited to announce our first ever club! You’ve probably seen other clubs before – for chocolate, wine, books, craft kits, and more. With the Love+Leche Love-of-the-Month Club you’ll get our best selling skin care products delivered right to your door each month! Today we’re giving you all the info for our new club, but don’t wait to order a subscription to the club–sign ups close Dec 31st!

So, how does it work, you ask?

Each month you’ll get a curated package of our best selling products, including special holiday and limited edition items!

Every shipment is packaged and delivered on the 15th of the month.

You can save up to 25%.

Available in 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month subscriptions we have the perfect gift for your budget, and you can relax knowing you’ve given a gift that the recipient can enjoy for months to come!

What’s in each shipment?

Well we wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise, but here’s an example of what you would get in the first shipment: 1 bar of Goat Milk Soap, and a sampler kit of 5 mini lotion bars including one in each of our scents.

Who should I give this to?

The short answer: Anyone on your gift list that loves hand crafted quality soaps and lotion bars. But, here are some more ideas:

Your family – your mom, sister, daughter, wife, you get the idea!

Your loved ones who live far away – each month they’ll get a reminder that you’re thinking of them, even if you can’t spend as much time together as you’d like.

Professional contacts like clients and contractors.

Teachers.

New moms and soon to be moms – they often have dry skin from all the hormones of pregnancy and could use a monthly reminder to take some time for themselves.

Yourself! Don’t forget to treat yourself to some nurturing in the new year, each month when you get a new package you’ll be thanking your past self!

3 reasons to gift a subscription to the Love-of-the-Month-Club today!

This is the gift that keeps on giving, with shipments coming each month you’ll get a fun surprise long after the holidays have ended.

You’ll get a discount on a high quality product that’s good for you and supports small businesses and local artisans.

The new Love+Leche Cedarwood Goat Milk Soaps and Lotion Bars are favorites among our male customers. Our soap is great for shaving. It has a light lather and a silky feel. Our calendula-infused, certified organic extra virgin olive oil is softening and soothing for your skin, and our goat-milk base results in a mild cleanser that’s perfect for men with sensitive skin. And we use local honey and beewswax, which is also incredibly moisturizing and healing.

Today we’re sharing some tips for how to get a great shave – it may take a few extra minutes but getting a close shave and taking care of your skin will keep you looking and feeling good all day.

#1 Prep your skin and hairTry shaving in the shower or right after you shower. When your skin and is warm and moist there’s less friction, and thus less irritation when you shave.

#2 Lather up with Love + Leche Soap
Use a brush to help you get a good lather with your soap. A good brush will really push the soap into the hair making it easier to shave. Our all natural soap doesn’t contain harsh chemicals that wash away the hair-softening oils naturally contained in your hair and is a great option for everyday shaving.

#3 Let it sit
Once you’ve brushed the warm soapy lather onto your face let it sit for a minute, further softening your skin and hair for shaving. You can comb your hair or brush your teeth while you wait.

#4 Go with the grain
You may get a closer shave if you shave in the opposite direction that your hair is growing, but you’re much more likely to get razor burn and ingrown hairs. If you follow the steps above to soften the hair you should be able to get a close, comfortable shave in one with-the-grain-pass.

#5 Change your blade frequently
Choose an inexpensive razor with just a single blade, the extra blades won’t add much and choosing a more affordable razor that you change frequently will ensure a closer comfortable shave more than the extra blades.

Don’t forget to moisturize after shaving, our lotion bar provides great moisture without that greasy feeling and absorbs quickly – the perfect way to finish your shaving routine!

We’re excited to announce that we have a new limited edition scent, available through the end of August 2015, Lavender-Mint! Here’s what knitter and blogger Courtney from Pink Brutus Knits had to say about our Lavender-Mint lotion bar,

The Lavender Mint scent is just as light and soothing as I had imagined it would be and the lingering aroma is carried along with my yarn stitch by stitch. Both of these oils are anti-inflammatory pain reducers…and though the lavender is notoriously soothing, the mint balances by invigorating the mind. Hours after applying the bar and knitting away on my newest design I can still feel the product doing it’s work to smooth my hands without leaving an oily or waxy residue.

You may have also noticed we have a new feature on the Love+Leche website, you can now shop by scent! We hope you’ll enjoy this new feature and it’ll making finding the perfect lotion bar just a little bit easier.

ONE DAY ONLY! Friday, May 8: Flash Sale to raise funds for Nepalese Children: $8 Lotion Bars with the coupon code: NEPAL

50% of all sales will go to the Home for Rescue of Afflicted Children in Katmandu, Nepal

Dear Friends,

My friend and fellow qigong teacher Brian Schock recently sent out an email asking folks to help support an orphanage affected by the recent earthquake in Nepal. He himself volunteered in this orphanage in 2011 and said their home is damaged and the children need food and water.

As you may know, after ten years as Milk+Honey, we recently changed our name Love+Leche, and are in the process of seeking a trademark for our beautiful new moniker. As part of this process, I discovered that our name has another, more hidden meaning. Phonetically in Spanish, “LECHE” sounds the same as “Le Eche”, which means “to put.” My trademark lawyer pointed out that “Love+Leche” can also mean “to put love in”. And so we do. We put love into all of our products, and into running our business. And now, I’d like your help to send some of that love to these children in Nepal.

Take advantage of this sale, buy gifts, give one of our products a try for the first time.

50% of all sales will go to the Home for Rescue of Afflicted Children in Katmandu, Nepal

We’re excited to announce our first ever photo contest, in celebration of Mother’s Day! The photos are above of Daven with her own mother, a little vintage photo inspiration for this contest.

What to Enter
Send us a photo of you and your baby, or you and your mom when you were a baby, whether the photos are new or old we’re looking for photos of moms and babies!

How to Enter (submit any way you’d like)
Post your photo on Instagram and tag @loveandleche and use #loveandlechemoms
Post a photo on the Love+Leche Facebook wall.

Prizes
We’ll choose our favorite photos to feature on our social media sites in May leading up to Mother’s Day. Each person who is featured will receive a Love+Leche lotion bar in the scent of their choice.

Details
By submitting your photo you agree that Milk+Honey can repost your photo and share it on all of their social media sites. Photos will be credited to the person who submitted them. There’s no set number of winners and prizes that will be awarded, it will be dependent upon the quantity and quality of the submissions received. There’s no limit to the number of photos you can enter for the contest, but each photo will count as one entry even if it’s been posted in multiple places. Submissions will be accepted through April 30, 2015.

I am excited to introduce our newest custom soap mold design, as well as share the news of our new name. Both are called Love+Leche.

The Virgin of Guadalupe

This beautiful new mold design harkens back to the very first year that I began my business. Taken under the wing of a local goatherd/milkmaid and soap maker Francesca Oldani, she shared with me not only her secrets and techniques for making soap, but also this beautiful custom design she had created for her by local sculptor Stephanie Huerta. I loved (and coveted) this design the moment I saw it. It captured the sweetness of the Nubian goats I adored and was raising, and the human-like maternal feeling shared between these two reflected my own mothering with my then small children. The rays in the background not only add a great graphic depth to the design, but echo the holy rays that always surround the Virgin of Guadalupe, a ubiquitous figure we have here in Santa Fe and Northern New Mexico. And the square shape and size is of course the perfect dimension for a bar of soap. Struck by an inspiration, we adapted the design into our signature round-shape for our lotion bars.

Fast forward a few years, and I have designed my own custom soap and lotion molds with Stephanie–but have never forgotten this one. I hang on to a bar of soap that Francesca made with her mold, and every so often take it out and gaze at it in appreciation. Then, last year, I received a call from Francesca. Her life changed shortly after she helped me get started in soap making, and her custom soap design never really came out into the world. Now she was sorting and cleaning out and found the original clay sculpture of this design, and would I like to buy it? Yes! And so here it is.

I have named it Love+Leche—for obvious reasons, no? Of course Leche (pronounced “lay-chay”) is the Spanish word for milk. It’s what babies ask their mothers for (when they can talk!) and what I get from the goats, and what makes your skin feel so good when you use my soap.

And beginning today, Milk+Honey becomes Love+Leche. After ten amazing years as Milk+Honey, a perfect name if ever there was one, I discovered that this name has been registered as a Trademark by another company. My brilliant daughter came up with Love+Leche during a brainstorming evening (she is the namer of the family). And so it is! Giving us an opportunity to let you all know that other than the name, our business continues as it always has, run by myself (CEO and Milkmaid), as a family business here in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with our values as strong as ever:

A belief in Mother Nature

An appreciation for things natural, handmade, sensual and beautiful

A passion to create a meaningful life that inspires others to do the same.

We’ve released a very special lotion bar for the month of February in honor of Valentine’s Day! Our limited edition heart shaped lotion bar is available in two scents: Lavender and our exclusive Lavender+Rose Geranium.

These limited time lotion bars are also available in our gift bags! Valentine’s Gift bags come pre-wrapped ready for gifting and include an Anywhere Balm and your choice of the two scents of the heart shaped lotion bar.